Sun, 28 Sep 2008

An interesting occurrence at a Toastmasters meeting last week
offered a lesson in the difficulties of writing or speaking
about technology.

The member who was running Table Topics had an interesting project
planned: "Bookmarks". I thought, things you put in books to mark your
place? Then I saw the three-page printout he had brought and realized
that, duh, of course, he means browser bookmarks.

The task, he explained, was to scan his eclectic list of bookmarks,
pick three, and tell a story about them.

Members reacted with confusion. Several of them said they didn't
understand what he meant at all. Would he give an example? So
he chose three and gave a short demonstration speech. But the members
still looked confused. He said if they wanted to pick just one, that
would be okay. Nobody looked relieved.

We did a couple rounds. I gave a rambling tale that incorporated
three or four bookmarks. One of our newer members took the list,
and wove a spirited story that used at least five (she eventually won
the day's Best Table Topic ribbon). Then the bookmark list passed to
one of the members who had expressed confusion.

She stared at the list, obviously baffled.
"I still don't understand. What do they have to do with bookmarks?"
"Browser bookmarks," I clarified, and a couple of other
people chimed in on that theme, but it obviously wasn't helping.
Several other members crowded around to get a look at the list.
Brows furrowed. Voices murmured. Then one of them looked up.
"Are these like ... Favorites?"

There was a immediate chorus of "Favorites?" "Oh, like in an Explorer
window?" "You mean like on the Internet?" "Ohhh, I think I get it ..."
Things improved from there.

I don't think the member who presented this project had any idea
that a lot of people wouldn't understand the term "Bookmark", as it
applies to a list of commonly-visited sites in a browser. Nor did I.
I was momentarily confused thinking me meant the other kind of
bookmark (the original kind, for paper books), but realizing that
he meant browser bookmarks cleared it right up for me.
A bigger surprise to me was that
the word "browser" wasn't any help to half the membership --
none of them understood what a "browser" was any more than they knew
what a "bookmark" was. "Like in an Explorer window?" or "on the internet"
was the closest they got to the concept that they were running a
specific program called a web browser.

These aren't stupid people;
they just don't use computers much, and haven't ever learned the
terminology for some of the programs they use or the actions they take.
When you're still learning something, you fumble around, sometimes
getting where you need to go be accident; you don't always know
how you got there, much less the terms describing the steps you took.
Even if you're an übergeek, I'm sure you have programs where
you fumble about and aren't quite sure how you get from A to B.

You may sometimes be surprised at meeting people who still use
Internet Explorer and haven't tried Firefox, let alone Opera.
You may wonder if it's the difficulty of downloading and installing
software that stops them.
But the truth may be that questions like "Have you tried Firefox?"
don't really mean anything to a lot of people; they're not really
aware that they're using Internet Explorer in the first place.
It's just a window they've managed to open to show stuff
on the internet.

Avoiding technical jargon is sometimes harder than you think.
Seemingly basic concepts are not so basic as they seem; terms you
think are universal turn out not to be. You have to be careful with
terminology if you to be understood ... and probably the only way
to know for sure if you're using jargon is to try out your language
on an assortment of people.